U. of Florida Athletes Twice as Likely to Evade Prosecution as College-Age Males in Gainesville

ESPN Outside the Lines reporter Paula Lavigne published an extensive piece today detailing whether and how college football and men’s basketball players at 10 major programs evade prosecution for crimes they are accused of. There’s a whole lot to unpack, and it would be distasteful aggregation for us to go through all of it, so it’s advisable to read the whole report for full context.

Of the programs covered — Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Michigan State, Missouri, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Texas A&M and Wisconsin (Notre Dame and MSU withheld some material, and ESPN is suing them) — the most significant records of shenanigans seemed to take place at Florida and Florida State:

But available reports showed that [Chris] Rainey’s alma mater, Florida, had the most athletes — 80 — named as suspects in more than 100 crimes at Florida. Yet the athletes either never faced charges, had charges against them dropped or were not prosecuted 56 percent of the time. When Outside the Lines examined a comparison set of cases involving college-age males in Gainesville, 28 percent of the crimes ended either without a record of charges being filed or by charges eventually being dropped.

Florida State had the second-highest number of athletes named in criminal allegations: 66 men’s basketball and football athletes. In 70 percent of those incidents, the athletes either never faced charges, had charges against them dropped or were not prosecuted. By comparison, cases ended up without being prosecuted 50 percent of the time among a sample of crimes involving college-age males in Tallahassee.

Both of those programs, as well as Oklahoma State, were said to have high-power attorneys on-hand, essentially as fixers. Florida Law graduate Huntley Johnson was touted by Chris Rainey — who was accused of myriad crimes in Gainesville including texting a girlfriend “Time to die, bitch, U and UR!” — as an attorney who could “get you out of anything, everything.”

Florida State’s fixer, Tim Jansen, who represented Jameis Winston, went on record with OTL in discussing how FSU associate athletic director Monk Bonasorte communicates about cases with him. Lawyers were just one of the factors in helping athletes stay out of trouble:

Overall, the Outside the Lines investigation found that what occurs between high-profile college athletes and law enforcement is not as simple as the commonly held perception that police and prosecutors simply show preferential treatment, though that does occur. Rather, the examination of more than 2,000 documents shows that athletes from the 10 schools mainly benefited from the confluence of factors that can be reality at major sports programs: the near-immediate access to high-profile attorneys, the intimidation that is felt by witnesses who accuse athletes, and the higher bar some criminal justice officials feel needs to be met in high-profile cases.

If you’ve got some time today, go read the whole thing.

from The Big Lead http://ift.tt/1edEMdK